Restructuring in the power industry has been the result of an operational change from a regulated monopoly to a free market system in which transmission operators are required to operate in a fair manner with all market participants. However, these same operators are also tasked with profit objectives of running a business in the power market. Often the manner in which market participants are required to operate is in direct conflict with technical and economic constraints. These constraints are imposed by regulatory agencies, economic concerns, and equipment performance limitations.
At the moment, operators provide regulatory agencies with schedule information detailing the quantity of energy and the time that energy will be produced. These schedules of energy vary over the course of a year, month, week, day, hour and other intervals of time such as seasons and special days such as holidays and weekends. Despite knowing that such energy requirements vary considerably at times, operators are often tasked with the burden of meeting demand for real-time and unanticipated shortage in energy. Meeting these unanticipated demands is often the cause of increased energy costs. Alternatively, decreases in energy costs may be the result of having to provide less energy when a glut of unanticipated energy exists in the marketplace.
As readily apparent, there is a significant need for a method and system which optimizes performance by minimizing costs and which complies with regulatory, economic and technical constraints. The present invention is a solution to the needs of energy producers which must control their production capacity to meet regulatory requirements and to minimize costs and optimize profitability.